Next Apple Watch Could Interpret Gestures

While the Apple Watch Series 2 is great if you're looking for a fitness tracker on steroids, not everyone wants a running, swimming, biking or yoga partner on their wrist. But a new patent suggests that Apple is getting ready to make its wearable a lot more desirable to everyone - including couch potatoes.

According to Apple Insider, a new Apple patent application was just published that covers a "wristband device input using wrist movement." Translation: the next Apple Watch, or maybe even a new smart band for the existing Apple Watch Series 1 and 2, could detect wrist gestures and translate them into commands.

Commands for what, you might ask? Imagine being able to make the telephone gesture with your hand to answer a call from your iPhone, or, as Apple Insider notes, change the volume or skip tracks on your music with other movements.

But a smarter Apple Watch that interprets gestures could go much further than this. You could potentially control smart home devices that use Apple's HomeKit protocol with a flick of your wrist, such as dimming the lights, or maybe by punching the air with a clenched fist you could continue binge watching Luke Cage on Netflix on your Apple TV.

Okay, I was half joking with that last example, but there truly are lots of possibilities when you introduce gesture control with the Apple Watch, both for app developers and hardware makers.

That includes other hardware Apple is working on. As rumors persist around a new smart speaker that would compete against the likes of the Amazon Echo and Google Home, gesture control could become a key differentiating feature on top of voice. After all, sometimes you just want to tell Siri, "Talk to the hand."

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